


The Little Blue Box of Christmas

by EventHorizon



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Ornaments, Gen, Kidlock, Mystrade Advent Calendar 2017, doctor who - Freeform, mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 18:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12989502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EventHorizon/pseuds/EventHorizon
Summary: Greg Lestrade is incredibly excited to be out of school, watching Christmas snow fall from the sky, and ready to have the best day the world had ever seen.  Meeting a new friend named Mycroft Holmes wasn't part of what he'd expected, but one didn't question the actions of Christmas magic and a small blue box called the TARDIS...





	The Little Blue Box of Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to [mottlemoth](https://mottlemoth.tumblr.com/) and [egmon73](https://egmon73.tumblr.com/) for organizing the Mystrade Advent Calendar 2017. Their hard work has really brought together some wonderful pieces of art and writing to celebrate the season!

SNOW!  This was great!  He had enough money in his pocket for sweets and chips and more sweets and a book and… ok, maybe he didn’t that much money, but mum and dad had said he could have _now_ the five pounds his gran had put in the Christmas card she sent and spend it however he liked.  And he liked a lot!  Especially on a day like today… snow, no school and he had five pounds!  This was going to be the best day in the world…

Greg sped along the cobbled streets of the quaintly decorated village, barreling into adults who simply rolled their eyes, as they’d already been barreled into by a veritable herd of out-of-school-for-Christmas children overcome with enthusiasm for the holidays.  How Father Christmas managed a workshop filled with tiny elves was quite beyond their ability to comprehend, because _these_ little elves were demons infesting the streets and getting more and more crazed as they took advantage of every kindly shopkeeper’s offer of a biscuit or colorfully-wrapped sweet.  The sugar in their blood was likely at toxic levels by now, but holiday magic kept them sentient and safe from a sugar coma.  Though, a village-wide, under-the-age-of-ten coma _would_ make adult shopping a great deal more placid, but one endured what one must in the spirit of Christmas.  Besides, their own children were somewhere in the throng, wreaking havoc with the little other demons, and hypocrisy would certainly have Father Christmas leaving large lumps of coal in their parental stockings.  Not something that would bring them glory when they bragged about it at the pub…

___________

Yes!  Free biscuits!  Three Christmas biscuits from Mrs. Burke’s bakery because she remembered he was the one who had climbed the tree to get her cat, Mr. GoodforNothing, who’d spied a bird’s nest and thought its occupants would make a good dinner.  All the stupid cat got was his ear nipped good and hard by the mother bird and then he decided to stay in the tree and sulk, but Greg Lestrade, world-famous tree climber, was on the job!  So sorry to bite your head off gingerbread man, but you’re delicious and lots of delicious biscuits and sweets and chips was what a champion tree-climber needed to stay fit.

Shoving the rest of the gingerbread man into his mouth, which required he stop a moment in the middle of the sidewalk to chew the large sugary mass to a point where it could be swallowed, Greg looked about and found his next stop.  While people walked around him like water flowing around a log obstructing its tidy path downstream, Greg checked his pocket for the hundredth time that his money was still there, then ran like his trousers were on fire towards the small shop that nearly glowed from the sparkling Christmas ornaments they had on display for sale.

Look at them all!  Shiny and every shape and size he could think of!  They didn’t have ornaments like this at home, because… well, these cost loads and they didn’t have loads to spend on things you only saw for a few weeks a year, but he could see them here and that was almost as good.  Beautiful sleighs, Father Christmas’s, animals and houses and shapes that made no sense but were lovely anyway.  He could look at them for hours and if he stood here long enough, Mr. Perkins might hand him a cup of the punch his wife made for the customers, even though he wasn’t an actual customer, but he _was_ thirsty after his biscuit and the punch was particularly good since it was fruity and spicy and smelled as nice as it tasted!

So, standing and looking, waiting for punch…

Greg’s loud, sudden gasp startled the entire shop and the nimble-footed quickly dove for cover as the small boy shot along a vector that, thankfully, didn’t crash him into a display, but did bring him close to crashing into the shelf that had caught his eye and it was only a frantic effort of pinwheeling his arms and, finally, throwing himself onto the ground in a self-sacrificial act that saved the object of his attention from becoming naught but bright and shiny shards of devastation.

Jumping back up without missing a beat, Greg quivered with excitement and danced foot to foot as he stared at the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

      “It’s a bloody TARDIS!”

Getting his head thumped by the shopkeeper as a reminder to watch his language was fair, in Greg’s opinion, but the thump was soothed by the cup of punch he’d _also_ gotten, so the fairness was especially fair indeed.  And, having to stop quivering and dancing to sip his drink gave Greg the opportunity to actually take note of what was around him, which included a dark-haired, portly, very well-dressed boy about his age, who had his own cup of punch held in the way that people who know how to properly hold cups of punch are prone to do.

      “Oh.  Hi.”

      “Hello.”

Spoken with a voice that people who know how to properly say hello are, also, prone to do.  This might be a pattern.  Greg didn’t know how to do anything properly, so he decided that paying attention might be smart so he could impress his mum with his newfound properness.

      “This is good punch, isn’t it?”

      “It is most palatable, yes.”

Did that mean it was good?  Proper Boy did put a ‘yes’ at the end there, so he was going to assume it did.

      “I’m Greg.  What’s your name?”

      “I am Mycroft.  Mycroft Holmes.”

That was about the sort of name he’d expected for Proper Boy.  It was a good name, though!  Not one everybody had, so it was unique and Greg Lestrade, King of the Tree Climbers, thought unique was brilliant!

      “That’s a fun name.  I like it.”

      “You… you do?”

      “Sure!  There are at least three other Greg’s at school, but I’ve never heard of a Mycroft at school or anywhere else, for that matter.  That means it’s a special name and those are great!”

Greg wasn’t sure why this new boy seemed surprised by his words, but he decided not to say anything about it, because it was probably wasn’t polite, and even as a world-famous tree climber and cat rescuer, he still tried to be polite.  Mostly.  Sometimes things just sort of happened on their own, which weren’t _entirely_ his fault, even though he got scolded for them, anyway.

      “Oh… thank you.  That is most kind of you to say.”

      “You’re welcome!  Were you looking at the TARDIS?  If not, I can’t imagine why not, because it’s amazing!  I’ve never seen a TARDIS Christmas ornament, but I wager if there are any others in the world, they’re not as nice as that one, because it’s amazing!  Looks just like it!  Got the right words written on it and the right blue, but it’s shiny and brilliant and… aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!”

Sometimes words failed Greg and he just had to let the rest of his argument come out as the best sound he could think of that expressed the nuances of what he’d wanted to say.

      "I was, in fact, looking at it.  Quite… quite the thing to behold.”

      “You like, Doctor Who, too?”

      “It is an acceptable television programme.”

      “Acceptable?  Oh, so, you _don’t_ like it very much, then.”

      “I…”

Greg didn’t miss Mycroft’s slight cut of eyes around the shop as if his new friend was hoping nobody would hear what he had to say.

      “… it is my favorite programme, actually.”

      “Mine too!  Well, one of my favorites.  I never miss it, though, even though my dad says I didn’t pay for the telly, so I don’t get a final say on what we watch.  He likes Doctor Who, too, though, so he’s just being silly and mum tells him to go off and finger his flute if he doesn’t want to watch, which doesn’t make sense since dad’s not musical, but he laughs the way he does when someone says something rude, so I suspect there’s something I’m missing.”

Greg watched Mycroft think a moment, then shake his head solemnly, as he had no explanation for it, either.

      “Hmmm… I suspect you are correct.  You should inquire if your curiosity is bothersome.”

      “Maybe I will.  Does your dad watch Doctor Who, too?”

      “Oh… no.  He rarely watches television.  He is far too busy for that.”

      “Works a lot, huh?  I understand that.  A lot of my mates, their dads work until past dinner every night!  Their mums have to keep something warm for them.”

      “Actually, that is also true of my father, though… I suspect the work he does is not the same.”

      “Dads do different jobs, that’s for certain.  It’s a shame, too, if it doesn’t leave them time to watch Doctor Who.”

      “An unexpected, yet lamentable, effect of earning a wage, I suppose.”

Thrusting his hand into his pocket, Greg decided he liked Mycroft and when you liked someone you shared what you had with them, even if it _was_ precious cat-rescuing rewards.

      “Ummm… do you want a biscuit?  I’ve got two and you can have one if you want.”

A hesitant shake of his new chum’s head wasn’t exactly the reaction Greg expected his offer to produce.  

      “I… oh, that may not be wise.  Mummy says I shouldn’t eat biscuits because I’m heavy.”

      “So’s my friend, Ron, but his mum lets him eat biscuits.  She bakes them, too, and they’re good.  I know that because when we’re playing footie at his house, she gives us a huge plate of them.  And another plate too if we eat those fast, which we usually do because why not?  Who doesn’t want more biscuits?  She doesn’t get mad, either.  Sometimes we get sandwiches, too.”

Mycroft was fast becoming fluent in Greg’s linguistic style of providing copious, although not necessarily relevant, data to support his argument and… it was pleasant.  Few people in his life talked _to_ him, rather than _at_ him, and this conversation, though somewhat a rambling one, was decidedly entertaining.

      “She sounds very nice, I must say.”

      “Oh, she is!  When Peter tore his shirt, she fixed it for him right there with a needle and some thread, so his mum wouldn’t be mad.  Does your mum sew?”

Mummy was a staunch proponent of having others do for you any and all little chores that might cross your path in any given day.  He suspected if she could have a servant do for her the basic mechanics of breathing, they currently would be interviewing candidates to find the one with the largest lung capacity to add to their household staff.

      “No, I do not believe she does.”

      “Well, not all mums do.  Mine doesn’t, for instance, though she tries sometimes.  It’s a sad sight, but me and dad wear what she’s made anyway, because it took her a long time and she was trying to be helpful, no matter how awful what she makes actually is.  You sure you don’t want a biscuit?”

Greg waved the biscuit in the space between their faces and watched Mycroft look around again, do it a second time, then give him a ‘yes, I would’ nod.

      “Here you go.  Make certain Mr. Perkins doesn’t see you, though, because he’ll make you pick up any crumbs and I’d rather leave them for the mice to eat, because why shouldn’t they get Christmas biscuits if the rest of us do?”

Greg laughed at his joke and, after another quick look around, Mycroft did, too.

      “Yes, one should share the spoils of Christmas with all who might enjoy them.  This _is_ very good biscuit.  Thank you, Gregory.”

      “You’re welcome!  I got them for being the world’s best tree climber and cat rescuer.”

      “I… dear me, that sounds rather vigorous.”

      “Well, you’ve climbed trees, so you know how a really tall one without a lot of branches can be a bit of a challenge.  I conquered it, though, and that’s why I’m the world’s best.”

      “No.”

      “Ok, maybe that’s a bit of a boast but…”

      “No, I mean… I have never climbed a tree.”

Greg’s gasp this time was softer than the last one, mostly because the legs of a gingerbread man were sticking out of his mouth.

      “What?  Sure you have!”

      “No, I can assure you that I have not.”

      “Oh.  That’s no fun.  Climbing trees is a _lot_ of fun and if you haven’t then that’s fun you haven’t had and that’s terrible!”

      “It is?”

      “Absolutely!  You should have all the fun it’s possible to have!  One day, you’re going to be old like your mum and dad and then you won’t get to have _any_ fun like climbing trees or reading or throwing a ball for a dog or anything like that.”

      “Hmmm… though I do not have a dog, I believe I understand your point and it _may_ be a credible one.”

      “I don’t have a dog, either, but there’s lots on my street and they don’t care who plays with them as long as they’re playing.  There’s a big tree, though, near school that’s brilliant to climb.  Wanna go and do that?  I’ll show you how.  I _am_ the world’s best, after all, so it stands to reason that I’d be the best teacher of tree climbing, too.”

      “Me?”

      “Sure!  If you haven’t climbed a tree, that one is perfect to start with!  If you don’t want to monkey-walk up the trunk to get to the first branch, there’s a bench you can stand on and then jump a bit to reach it.”

      “That… that sounds most entertaining, however, I… I am not, I suspect, suitably dressed for such a thing.”

Nor suitably _physical_ for such a thing, either.

      “Oohhh… yeah, you’re right.  And I know my mum would give me the what for if I came home my visiting-gran clothes dirty and with bugs in the pocket.”

      “Bugs?”

      “Well, it only happened once, but I was _very_ surprised when I got home and reached into my pocket for a sweet I thought I had there and took out a bug, instead.  Next time, after you visit your gran, change into something else and you can climb trees.”

      “I… I was not visiting my grandmother.”

      “You weren’t?  That usually when I wear my nice clothes, except Christmas when I have to go to church, but Gran usually comes to see us at Christmas and comes to church, too, so I’m not entirely certainly which of those is why I have to wear my nicest shirt and trousers.”

      “My grandmother lives some distance away, you see.  This… this is my standard manner of dress.”

      “It is?”

      “Yes.”

      “Oh… that’s alright, then.  Nothing wrong with it, except for not being able to climb trees.  If your Gran lives far away, does she send you Christmas cards?  Mine does.”

      “Yes, we do receive a yearly card from her and my grandfather.”

      “Does it…”

Now it was Greg’s turn to look around for spies and other open-eared ne’er-do-wells.

      “… does it have 5 pounds in it?”

      “No.”

      “That’s too bad.  Mine had 5 pounds in it this year.  And…”

Another look around to check the coast was clear.

      “… I have it in my pocket right now.  Mum said I could spend it however I like, too.”

      “Grandmama does not, I feel, entrust cash to the Royal Mail.  Besides, I have my own funds to spend, should I have a need.”

      “You have five quid?”

      “Uh… somewhat more than that, actually.”

      “Really!  That’s… well, that’s brilliant is what that is!  Five quid is the most money I’ve ever had and with all the things I can do with it… my head’s spinning!  You must be insanely spinny right now!”

Mycroft suddenly made sense of his father’s comments about the value of money being very different to different people.

      “I… I would not say I was spinny, but it is comforting to know that if there something I desire, I can purchase it.”

      “Are you going to buy the TARDIS?  I would, but it would take _all_ of my five pounds and then I wouldn’t have anything left for sweets or chips or a new book or anything.”

      “No… no, I shall not be purchasing it.”

There was a regret and sadness in Mycroft’s tone that made Greg both sad and mad, because Mycroft was nice and if something was keeping him from buying something as great as a TARDIS ornament, then Greg Lestrade, Cat Rescue Hero, would give it a punch in the nose!

      “Why not?  It’d be amazing on your Christmas tree!  I’d put it right at the top, so everyone could see it.”

      “Mummy would never allow that.”

      “Why not, doesn’t she like Doctor Who?”

      “I… I doubt she has heard of Doctor Who.  Besides… our Christmas tree is something… it is rather more crafted to impress than to… it is not a thing that I am a part of, you see.”

No, Greg didn’t see. He didn’t see in the slightest.

      “That doesn’t make any sense.  You help decorate it, don’t you?  That’s one of my favorite things at Christmas!  We have good food and hot drinks and play music and decorate the tree… my gran says we don’t do it right, because dad puts the lights on after we hang the other bits, but that way he knows where to put the little bulbs so each ornament gets it’s own spotlight!  She stills says he’s daft, though, but dad gives her another glass of whisky and that usually makes her happy.”

      “That… that sounds delightful, actually.  Mummy tends to direct the decorating of the tree and the servants take care of the actual work putting the pieces into place.”

      “Servants?  Oh, you’re posh.  That makes sense.  But, it doesn’t explain why you do the tree that way when there’s no fun in it, at all!”

      “I believe Mummy and Father see the tree simply as another element of our home’s décor and not a… family fun activity.”

      “Well, they should.  It’s _loads_ of fun!  But… I suppose you’ve got a brilliant house that looks like it was in one of those films that are boring, actually, but have lots of people with nice cars and clothes and don’t seem to actually do anything for a living.  A tree like ours _would_ probably look a bit strange there.”

      “Mummy would likely faint.”

      “Would your dad rush over and catch her?”

      “He would probably expect the servants to do it or wonder why she was being gauchely dramatic.”

      “Oh Mycroft… I am swooning!  Catch me!”

Greg leaned over and began to fall, giggling loudly when Mycroft rushed to stop his plummet.

      “You’re already got your dad beat on the fainting front!”

Mycroft huffed and put Greg back on his feet, keeping a finger on the center of Greg’s chest for a moment in case another attack of the swoons suddenly manifested.

      “Gregory, you could have hurt yourself.”

      “Nope.  I fall over all the time and haven’t hurt myself yet.  Besides, you caught me, didn’t you?  Want some chips?  I’m getting hungry and the chips shop two streets over makes the best.”

Want?  Mycroft’s mouth was practically watering at the thought of hot, succulent chips.  Breakfast seemed an age ago and his mother would surely have ordered naught but vegetables and a small sliver of the leanest, and driest, meat for his lunch… however…

      “That’s… that is nice of you, but…”

      “Is this the heavy thing again?”

Yes.

      “No, not necessarily.  It’s… it’s simply I do have to be home soon and could not likely linger as long as you might prefer to enjoy our refreshment.”

Which, to Mycroft’s credit, was actually true, to some extent.  His absence from the house had not exactly been an announced departure and there was always some small chance one of his parents might come to find him for some tedious reason or another.

      “That makes sense, I suppose.  We’ll do it another time, then.”

Knowing his hearing was actually most keen, Mycroft had difficulty doubting that he’d heard what he thought he’d heard, but… did he _actually_ hear what he just thought he heard?

      “A… Another time?”

      “Sure!  I’m in the village a lot, so we can stop in another time.  I’ll put aside enough of my five pounds so I’m ready for those yummy chips.  In fact, I’ll aside enough for two portions, in case you forget your money.  I do that lot.  Mum gives me enough to get a new book and I get all the way here before remembering I left it in my room!”

Mycroft stayed silent and still for so long, periodically blinking in an odd, random pattern, that Greg finally gave him a poke to make certain he was still alive.

      “Oh, do pardon me.  That… I…”

      “What’s wrong?”

      “I… I do not often come to the village.”

      “Why not?  It’s great!  There’s lots to do and see and if you’re well-behaved, the shopkeepers don’t mind if you just look at things and don’t buy them.”

Why not, indeed… well, for one, Mummy would be appalled to know he was cavorting with the village children and two, he had never before had a tremendous desire to stay in the village longer than it took to satisfy whatever need had brought him here in the first place.  The offer _did_ hold appeal, however… _however_ , how long would Gregory want to associate with him, once he saw clearly how dreary he was?  Not even his peers found him good company, though, he did suspect a measure of that was due to his rather remarkable intelligence and lack of interest in their immature pranks and gossip.

      “I… I shall give it some thought.”

      “Thought?  Nah, doesn’t take any thought.  We don’t have school right now, what with Christmas being right there so close I can almost hug it, so we’ll have lots of chances.  Do you have _any_ time before you have to go home?  I haven’t looked in here at all besides at the TARDIS, which is probably the best thing ever and nothing else is even going to come close to being this brilliant, but we can look about a bit if you like.  We’ll probably get more punch, too, and if Mrs. Perkins is doing the books, I can tell her how nice her dress is, and she’ll give us more biscuits.  They won’t be like the ones from the bakery, but she keeps a few packets in her desk to nibble while she does the book work to keep the shop going.  And it won’t be a lie either!  The dress, I mean.  She wears very pretty dresses, even though she’s older than my mum.”

Mycroft pondered the question and pondered it very, very hard.  Should he?  It did sound like… fun.  And, nobody had ever asked him to share time before…

      “I would very much like to look about the shop with you, Gregory.  In truth, I had simply stepped in because the TARDIS caught my eye from the window and I have yet to look at any other of the wares.”

      “Then, let’s get started!  We can come back and look at the TARDIS later once we’ve got more to compare it to so we can officially declare it the best ornament in the shop.”

      “A robust data set is always important to support an argument.”

      “Robust is good, right?”

      “Yes.”

      “Then we need as much robust as we can get!  Come on, there are usually some dogs and cats ornaments over there and we can start with those.”

      “You seem to have an admiration of pets, Gregory.”

      ‘They’re great!  And those ornaments aren’t all made of breakable things so you can play with them and make them fight or dance or whatever like and that’s loads of fun.”

Mycroft’s hand was grabbed and off he went to begin the Great Cat and Dog Christmas Theatre performance.  However it did not actually sound as ludicrous as he might have predicted.  After all… he had very firm ideas about who would win in various combinations of dog/cat combatants and was eager to convince Gregory as to the strength of his arguments…

__________

      “Well, there it is.”

Two small boys stood, once again, before the TARDIS, staring reverently at it’s full, glittering glory.

      “Yes… a most resplendent thing amongst a shop filled with ornaments well described in such a manner.”

      “Sure you don’t want to take it home with you, Mycroft?”

      “Oh… I would very much like that, however… it is best not to make Mummy angry and amending her Christmas presentation would certainly succeed in that.”

      “That’s too bad.  Making your mum upset, though, isn’t good, especially at Christmas.  She might not make your favorite treats or might return your presents and give you socks for Christmas, instead, and that would be horrible.”

Fortunately, he had already negotiated his gifts from his parents and there was a default clause in the contract that they would certainly not ignore, given the attached list of penalties for such a thing and Cook would surely prepare his traditional package of Christmas delectables that Mummy had no reason to know about, let alone watch him eat on Christmas Eve and Day while he celebrated in his bedroom with a good book.

      “Yes, it would be a terrible thing, indeed.  Well… goodbye, Gregory.  It was very nice to meet you.”

      “Bye, Mycroft.  When are you going to be back in the village?”

      “Oh, I am not entirely certain.”

      “A lot of Christmas things you have to do, like visiting your relatives or having them visit you?”

      “Uh… that might occur, but it is simply difficult to know…”

When he could convince Driver to bring him, and, whereas a vigorous boy like Gregory might find the walk agreeable, it was certainly not ‘fun’ for _him_ to trudge from home to the village and wear sweat stains on his clothing in the aftermath, even though the temperature was most brisk.

      “… when I can find the time to devote purely to my own amusement.”

      “Ooh, that’s sounds painful.  Well, I’ll be here every day, probably, if I’m not doing something with my mates, but we often do our somethings in the village, so it should be easy to find me.  Ask about and someone will probably know where I am.  My mum and dad have lots of friends and they all know me, so I have to be on good behavior or they’ll hear about it right away and I’ll get into the worst sort of trouble.”

      “I shall.  Thank you, Gregory.  I appreciate… that you are hopeful of continuing our association.”

Before Greg could answer, Mycroft scurried away so he didn’t have to _hear_ the answer should it be something he didn’t _want_ to hear.  If he never saw this person again, he could, at least, hold in his mind the fantasy that… he had a friend.  A friend who laughed at his attempts at humor, treated him like anyone else and not the son of one of the wealthiest families in England… he simply could not allow that fantasy to die a cruel death and if being a bit rude and running away as fast as he could without _appearing_ to run was the price to pay, he would pay it gladly.  It was the greatest Christmas gift he’d ever received and nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to take that away from him…

For his part, as Greg watched Mycroft dash off, wearing a rosy shade of what might be embarrassment or uncertainty on his cheeks, he thought about the new friend he’d made.  Mycroft was great!  Smart and funny and liked to talk about interesting things like who would win if a big orange cat had a battle with one of those sleek, sneaky looking cats with the pretty blue eyes.  But… he also had the feeling that Mycroft didn’t get to talk about things like that a lot.

In fact, he got the feeling Mycroft didn’t have many friends, at all.  _He_ had lots and talked about them, but Mycroft never mentioned a single one.  That was miserable to think about, too.  Someone like Mycroft should have loads of friends!  But, maybe it was different when you were as posh and proper as Mycroft was.  It shouldn’t be, because having friends and doing things with them was fun, especially at Christmas, but if Mycroft didn’t many… oh, it was horrible to think about.

And it was _truly_ horrible about Mycroft’s Christmas tree.  It was probably an amazing tree, because rich people wouldn’t have something that wasn’t amazing, but… it probably wasn’t as nice as _his_ , since he and his family worked on it together and it had all sorts of fun ornaments, including some he’d made when he was _very_ small, and teachers had you do that sort of thing at school.  It was a shame that Mycroft didn’t have that.  A tree with ornaments that meant something and a family night where everyone was silly and happy and fought over where to put this or that and ate lots of good things that you shared with neighbors if they popped in to visit.  He didn’t even know where Mycroft lived to know if he _had_ neighbors who might pop in for mulled wine or mince pies or anything you usually only had at Christmas.

Mr. Perkins might know, though.  Or, if not him, he could ask Mr. Johnson, the banker.  Rich people had lots of money, so a banker would certainly know where they lived.  Probably volunteered to help them carry their sacks of money to his bank when there were too many for Mycroft’s dad to carry alone…

__________

When Mycroft heard the rapping on his bedroom window he honestly had no idea what to do since it was a singular occurrence in his life and one fraught with possibilities from literature and film that ranged from blissful to horrifying.  However, given his curiosity would not let him ignore this little mystery, he set aside his book and peeked out, only to see a small, familiar shape running off down their long drive as if the devil was on his heels.

Gregory!  Why on Earth… how on Earth… ah, the trail of footprints in the snow along the exterior wall indicated that the ground-floor windows had been peered through in search of Gregory’s target which, apparently, was him.  But why run away?  It made no sense…

It was then that Mycroft’s eyes looked down a bit and noticed the scene below his own window, one which put his heart squarely in his throat and it was an uncharacteristic display of physicality that had him climbing out of his window to better look at this bit of wonder.  Set on what appeared to be a hastily cobbled-together base made of two crude boards fashioned into an ‘X’ pattern with a few supporting wood slivers was… it was likely a rather unappreciated shrub that had been pulled from someone’s garden with the base cut so it could sit in a chipped tea mug filled with water and atop it was hanging… the TARDIS.  Glittering like the real Time Lord vehicle as it traveled through space and time, it proudly graced the makeshift tree which sported nothing else on it’s few, flimsy limbs except a small piece of paper.  Which, of course, he had to read… despite Gregory’s atrocious penmanship…

_Hi Mycroft!_

_Merry Christmas!  I thought maybe you could put a tree in your bedroom if your mum wasn’t too nosy and snooped about and that we could make some other ornaments for it if you want to.  I asked my mum if I could have you over and she said yes, so next time I see you we can go to my house and make some stuff for your tree and have cake, since mum baked one today and it’s really good.  I’ll be in the village tomorrow and the next day and I’ll start at the bookshop after breakfast, so if you can, you can meet me and we can do things.  Like make ornaments and eat cake later if we get hungry._

_Bye!!!_

_Greg_

Mycroft blinked several times to make certain his eyes were not deceiving him, then felt his face twist as he struggled to contain the odd emotional surge that made his chest feel hot and tight.  Picking up his Christmas tree and taking great care not to imperil the ornament that had cost… his friend… all of his five pounds of Christmas money, Mycroft made his way back into his bedroom and set the gift near one of his closets that his mother could not see from the door when she made one of her very infrequent visits to his room to announce something or the other that he cared little about.  From any point inside the room, however, _he_ would be able to see it and the staff was very good about not telling Mummy or Father about anything they might find while cleaning, such as sweets or one of the magazines he covertly purchased that had information about Doctor Who or the other science fiction programmes for which he had a taste.

Checking that his tree and ornament were going to remain righted, Mycroft took a step back to admire his gift.  Their yearly Christmas tree was massive, decorated with exquisite artistic beauty and attracted a bevy of photographers from London to take photographs to include in this or that article about the holiday décor of London’s great houses.  But it was not, not in any manner, as beautiful as _his_ tree.  His tree was the most special, perfect tree possible and… yes.  Tomorrow he _would_ go to the village, whether Driver liked the idea or not, and meet Gregory, first, to thank him for this grand gift and, second… to have fun.  With his friend.  Shopping for books, creating things together to adorn his tree, talking and laughing, eating cake… and chips.  Gregory dearly wanted some and that was the least he could do to repay his new friend for this wonderful act of friendship.

And… oh dear.  Tomorrow night was Doctor Who night.  Truly, Christmas was looking upon him with a doting eye.  Thinking a moment, Mycroft went into the closet behind his precious tree, rooted to the very back and drew out a dark cape with a bright red lining very similar to what the Doctor wore.  Perhaps not tomorrow night, but one night, he would have Gregory here to enjoy their favorite program on the telly in his bedroom and they could take turns wearing his cape.  Gregory would likely be most dramatic about it, too.

But, that would simply be part of the fun and what was Christmas without a hearty helping of fun?  Certainly not a Christmas he ever again wanted to experience…


End file.
